


samskeyti

by aisu10



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemon, Angst, DAEMON ANGST, Daemons, Gen, M/M, all the daemon feels, it hurt to write this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-12 01:48:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisu10/pseuds/aisu10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce and Tony had no idea how much meeting each other's daemons would change them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	samskeyti

“A snake. Of course your daemon would be a snake.”

Tony and Jarvis both look over at Bruce, surprised at his curious reaction to the reveal. Jarvis has just slipped himself out of Tony’s sleeve, his lithe golden form sliding easily across the table in the Helicarrier lab where the two unlikely teammates are currently hacking into SHIELD’s database. The snake _is_ beautiful, Bruce admits to himself as he eyes colorful scales that glint in the light of the holographic screens around them. Jarvis’ slender back is the color of sunlight and his belly white as snow, but his head is a different color entirely, the exact hue of a silver dollar. 

“Why do you say that?” Tony asks, leaning against the table as Jarvis coils up on its smooth surface, dark, unreadable eyes trained on the physicist across from them. 

“It’s nothing,” Bruce replies with a shake of his head, but he’s still smiling as he turns his attention to the screen in front of him. 

“Come on, Banner,” Tony urges, tapping his fingers on the edge of the table impatiently, “It’s show-and-tell time. I want to see what you’ve got in that lumpy breast pocket of yours.” 

“This?” Bruce asks, and he feels the warm bundle tremble against his heart. 

_Should I come out?_

_If you want to._

_I want to._

“This is Sophronia,” Bruce explains softly as he lifts a hand to chest and Sophie’s tiny whiskered face pops out of his pocket, followed by a sleekly-furred body that curls snugly into his comparatively large hand. His first instinct is to keep her close to his body, but she nudges him forward and he ferries her to the tabletop. She crawls from his worn skin to the cool steel on delicate pink paws and meets Jarvis’ reptilian gaze. The snake’s black tongue flicks out once, as if to taste her from afar. 

“A mouse!” Tony laughs, and Bruce can tell he’s not laughing at the form but the irony of it all. “I get it, now. Predator and prey.” 

Bruce smirks and keeps his hand palm-flat on the table next to his small daemon. Her coat matches the silver that dusts his own curls. 

“I was prey once, you know,” Tony says, his tone suddenly very serious. His mood changes as quickly as his daemon’s tongue slips in and out. 

“You were?” Bruce asks, intrigued. He removes his glasses so that he can get a better look at Tony’s face, folding them in the hand not flat on the table. 

“Yep,” he continues, tapping the arc reactor pointedly, “I was saved by a mongoose.” 

Jarvis uncurls himself and slides hesitantly toward Sophie. Her nose twitches furiously and she takes a few cautious steps of her own. 

Bruce takes this in. “That must have been... uncomfortable.” He imagines Tony, helpless in the hands of a more powerful soul, feeling weak and desperate for control. A lot like how Bruce feels every day. 

“It was only uncomfortable because he wasn’t there.” 

Bruce doesn’t know what to say, because he’s been there - _loads_ of times. He knows what it’s like to be separate from his daemon, his very heart ripped away to be replaced by raw anger when he transforms. And now he knows that Tony has felt the same kind of pain, and lived to tell the tale. He looks at the circle of light in Tony’s chest with a new sort of terrible awe. 

The silence between them then is only broken by the rustling of Jarvis’ scales as he slides over steel, pausing only a foot from Sophie with his gaze locked on hers. 

“Where does she go,” Tony asks slowly, his own eyes full of the sorrow that he knows they’ve both felt as he follows his daemon’s lead and gazes into Bruce’s. “...When you transform?” 

Jarvis finally severs the distance to touch his scaly snout to Sophie’s trembling pink nose, the contact ruffling her silver fur like static and sending a shiver down Bruce’s spine. 

“I don’t know,” Bruce breathes, “I don’t _know._ ” 

\---

_“There hasn’t been an accident in 40 days, Bruce,” Sophie whispers, “I know you can do this.”_

_“I - I can’t, it’s -” Bruce stammers, curled on the ground in the crumbling shack he calls home, head and heart pounding as he tears at his hair. “I can feel him, he’s right below the surface - pushing, trying to break free- ”_

_“Bruce, Brucie, stay with me,” Sophie pleads, her panting breath in his ear, tiny claws scrabbling for a hold on the sweaty skin of his neck. Her fur is wet as well, tears clinging to her whiskers like dew on a spiderweb._

_“Sophie, I’m - I’m not strong enough -” he gasps, and then he cries out in terror as her hold on him lessens, her paws fading away - her name rips from his throat over and over as his chest clenches in pain, but he can’t hear her anymore, she’s slipped away with the red in his blood and now everything’s green, it’s all green -_

_“WHY DO YOU TAKE HER FROM ME?” he roars, and slips away himself._

\---

When Tony sees Bruce’s transformation for the first time he’s horrified - Bruce doesn’t scream, but he can see it in his eyes, the sheer terror at the notion of having to lose Sophie yet again. He sees him clench his teeth in pain, cup his hand over the pocket where Sophie is hiding, desperately try to keep her there as his body stretches and grows and swells - but when his clothes fall to shreds around him and his skin and veins are green she is nowhere. 

The Hulk rampages, smashing everything in his path. Tony sees that there’s pain in his eyes, too, and he wonders if Hulk feels the same horror that Bruce does when Sophie leaves him. Maybe he breaks things because he doesn’t know how to hold them together. 

When Bruce finally changes back, the army is defeated and Tony finds him among the rubble, covered in dust and dirt with ripped pants lying loose around his waist. Sophie has inexplicably returned, curled over his heart, shaking with every breath and pressing herself into his skin as if she could sink between his ribs and never leave him again. 

Tony helps him up, and Bruce leans against Tony’s shoulder, one hand holding up his torn clothing and the other clutching his daemon in place. No questions are asked, but as they eat shawarma later, Jarvis curls his slender body around Sophie in a wordless gesture of comfort and protection. 

\---

“I think he wants her just as much as you do,” Tony tells Bruce later, as they work together in the personal lab that Tony built for him when he moved into Avengers tower. 

“What makes you think that?” Bruce asks darkly. 

“There’s a look in his eyes that reminds me of how I felt in that cave, without Jarvis. He looks... lost.” 

“He’s not the one who’s lost,” Bruce sighs, clutching a hand to his breast pocket to feel Sophie nip at his fingertips and remind him she’s still there. “She is.” 

\---

Bruce thought he could handle it, he really thought he could. He thought he had the control needed to hold his monster back, to keep Sophie with him. But it’s happened again, the nightmare where he watches silver fur scatter into Dust and slip through throbbing green fingertips, and when the rampage in his mind is over he’s himself again but she’s _still not there_. He wakes up in a fit of rage and terror and he can’t stop the very real transformation from occurring, his nightmare coming true before his eyes. She leaves him, again, but this time he’s not alone. 

Tony chases Hulk through smashed tower walls and into the room he made especially for him - a place too strong to break, not a cage but a sanctuary. Tony flies in after him and locks the door while Hulk crushes the rocks and beams and boards that were left there for this purpose, as a way for him to vent and eventually calm down and let Bruce come back. Tony looks into his eyes again and sees the same pain he’d seen out on the battlefield. 

“Hulk?” Tony asks carefully. Jarvis is coiled around his neck inside the suit, watching. 

Hulk roars, picks up a rock as if to throw it, but he stops when he sees who’s speaking to him and instead crushes it to pebbles in his fist. 

“Hulk, please calm down,” Tony says as he lowers himself to the ground. “Please let Bruce come back.” 

“Banner,” Hulk huffs, settling down slightly, panting from exertion. Tony nods. 

“Bruce and Sophie.” 

At her name, Hulk roars again, smashing his fists into the ground. “Sophie!” he roars, and there’s so much agony in his voice that it brings a lump to Tony’s throat. 

Tony’s helmet snaps up to reveal his face, and Jarvis peeks out from his spot to look up at Hulk with profound sympathy. 

“Yes, Hulk. You want her, don’t you? You miss her?” Tony asks, walking closer. 

Hulk gives a pained growl before nodding. “Sophie.” 

“I don’t know where she goes,” Tony says, “Neither does Bruce. I’m sorry.” 

Hulk looks devastated, then, eyes turning downward as he clenches and unclenches his fists. When he looks at Tony again he’s actually crying, which is something that Tony never in his life expected to see. 

"I know what you're feeling, Hulk," Tony tells him, burning with the urge to reach out to Bruce and Hulk and show them that they're not alone. He can't stand to see anyone like this, especially not his best friend. "I know what it's like to be separated." 

Jarvis uncoils himself slightly, his scales brushing Tony’s neck. He lifts his head to look directly at Hulk. Hulk tilts his head, sniffing once. 

"Tony Sophie?" he asks, pointing to Jarvis. 

"Yeah," Tony says, "He's my Sophie." 

_I want to touch him_ , Jarvis says suddenly, urgently. 

_Are you sure?_

_Sure as I've ever been, sir._

Tony walks closer to Hulk, close enough to reach out and put a gauntleted hand on the center of his giant green chest - and Jarvis flies out from around his neck, coiling around Tony’s iron-clad arm until he is able to nudge Hulk’s green skin with his silver nose. Hulk freezes at the touch, and warmth blossoms in Tony’s core and spreads to his every extremity. And in that moment he’s sure he can feel Sophie nudging back metaphysically through Hulk, reaching out to return Jarvis’s touch like she had when they first met. 

“Sophie,” Hulk mumbles in his softest voice, eyes closing, and he begins to shrink, fading from green to pink. As he gets smaller, Jarvis leaves Tony’s arm completely, clinging to Bruce as he sinks to the floor before Tony. As soon as the unconscious man hits the ground Sophie is _there_ , and Jarvis wraps her up in a golden spiral around Bruce’s heart and soul. 

Tony can’t believe what they’ve done, breaking taboo to comfort the only one he’s ever met who knows the pain he’s felt, but he doesn’t regret it for a second. He feels closer than he ever has to his own soul along with Bruce's, as if by connecting with Bruce and Sophie, Jarvis has strengthened the bond between himself and Tony. He can feel _everything_ through Jarvis - Bruce’s heartbeat throbs under his skin and his warmth spreads throughout Tony, causing every inch of his body to tingle with an energy he’s never felt before. He carries Bruce back to his bed and, after ditching the suit, collapses into it with him, sliding a naked arm over Bruce’s ribs and under Jarvis’s coils. 

\---

“I was right. He wants her, too,” Tony tells Bruce softly as they lie in bed the next morning, facing each other, their daemons having traded places between them. 

Bruce doesn’t want to believe it - he’s so used to villainizing the Hulk for taking Sophie away - but recently he’s begun to see that he’s a real person as well, a real person who likely wants a daemon like anyone else. Could it be true? 

He looks down at Jarvis, whose long golden body is tangled around his arms, connecting him to Tony in a way he’d never imagined possible. He drags his thumb up down the smooth underside of Jarvis’ chin, and sees Tony shudder slightly. 

“But she’s not there. For either of us,” Bruce says softly, sorrow clinging to each word. 

“You’re wrong. She’s with you, Bruce,” Tony says, “I promise. Jarvis and I, we felt her. She’s not lost. She never really leaves.” 

Bruce searches Tony’s face, listening and wishing with all his being that he’s right. 

_He is_ , Sophie tells him gleefully as she peers out from where she’s cupped between Tony’s hands. _I felt them too._

It’s the most insane thing he’s ever heard and yet Bruce somehow knows they’re telling the truth. Bruce holds Sophie and Jarvis and Tony all together as one, and somehow finds it in himself to laugh. It’s tired and weak, but there’s no other way to express the euphoria he feels. He knows it will still hurt, and he will never get over his fear of her fading - but at least, now, he knows he’s never completely alone. Jarvis and Tony were able to find her when he never could. 

“Tony, do you know what’s funny?” 

“What, Bruce?” 

“You were saved by a mongoose. I was saved by a snake.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title, _samskeyti_ , is the nickname of Sigur Rós' track Untitled Track #3. It means _attachment_ in Icelandic. I want to dedicate the fic to my own daemon, Pythagoras. 
> 
> This fic makes references to another fanfiction, [Sky Iron](http://archiveofourown.org/works/410086) by [icarus_chained](http://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained), that I read and accepted into my personal headcanon (Jarvis is Tony's snake daemon and was separated from him in Afghanistan; Yinsen's daemon was a mongoose.). However, my fic is my _own_ take, not a continuation of icarus_chained's fantastic story. :)
> 
> Now, picture time!
> 
> Jarvis is a [Golden Tree Snake/Ornate Flying Snake, _Chrysopelea ornata_](http://www.reedysreptiles.com/fullsize/Golden%20Tree%20Snake%20800.jpg)
> 
> Sophronia is a [house mouse, _Mus musculus_](http://www.techletter.com/assets/Images/housemouse.jpg)


End file.
